Subject: wanted: stone-age recipes

From: [email-masked] (Jeff "Crusader" Gonzales)
Date: 1 Jun 1994 22:48:34 GMT

I am interested in learning what stone-age man ate so I can try and avoid 
the poisonous foods of civilized cultures.  Can anyone help me?  Thanks.

---

From: [email-masked] (Eric Brooks)
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 10:05:05 +0000

> the poisonous foods of civilized cultures.  Can anyone help me?  Thanks.
I always look to Fred and Wilma for guidance in this area.  Otherwise
check out the anthropology section of your local library.

BTW all food has been poisoned by civilization.
-- 
Eric Brooks
[email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (John E. Taylor III)
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 13:01:41 -0400

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Jeff

> the poisonous foods of civilized cultures.  Can anyone help me?  Thanks.

Don't forget that stone-age man was short-lived; 40 years made you a
venerated elder of the tribe.  He consumed foods with _natural_ poisons but
they didn't bother him much, because he didn't live long enough to be
affected by long-term, low-dose exposure.

I'm not sure a poorly balanced diet of "whatever you can find/catch", which
is what, in fact, people ate before civilized culture brought choice, would
avoid much in the way of health hazards.

As for preparation methods, boiling, roasting on a stick/spit, baking in
ashes or a mud coating sound about right.

Seasonings?  If it grows locally, use it.  If not, it wouldn't be
authentic.  How many spices grow in Oregon?  Might be a bland diet.

--
John Taylor    (W3ZID)     |  "The opinions expressed are those of the
[email-masked] |   writer and not of Rohm and Haas Company."

---

From: [email-masked] (marian walke)
Date: Sun, 5 Jun 1994 00:53:21 GMT

>the poisonous foods of civilized cultures.  Can anyone help me?  Thanks.

Three useful books:  

1.  Food in Antiquity, by Don Brothwell and Patricia Brothwell (Frederick 
A Praeger, Publishers, New York & Washington, 1969).  Full of tidbits 
such as "pottery cheese-strainers of Neolithic and Bronze Age date in 
Greece and Crete show that cheese-making began very early there."

2.  Studies in Ancient Technology, by R J Forbes (Vol III, 2nd ed; E J 
Brill, Leiden, 1965.  Somewhat more technical, but also full of info.

3.  Food and Drink in Britain, by C Anne Wilson (first published 1973 in 
Great Britain; new edition by Academy Chicago Publishers, Chicago, 
1991).  Each chapter is devoted to a particular food (fish, game, fowl,
etc.) and divided into sections on prehistoric, Roman, Medieval, etc. 
uses of that food.  Very informative.

I'd be interested in hearing more on this subject if people have other 
recommended sources.

--Old Marian ([email-masked])

---

From: [email-masked] (Robert Hess)
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 16:48:10 GMT

Jeff "Crusader" Gonzales ([email-masked]) queries:
 -----------------------------------------------------------
| I am interested in learning what stone-age man ate so I can try and
| avoid the poisonous foods of civilized cultures.  Can anyone help me?

The term 'Pre-History' refers to The Time Of Man prior to any form of
written accounts of history and daily life. The 'Stone Age' is even before
this, which makes it rather hard to locate recipes that our ancient
ancestors might have used. :->

The only way to determine diet of these cultures, is to study the remains
in their campsites. The waste material in their 'garbage', and the tools
that might have been used to proces food. Unfortunately, the waste
material that would be most useful would also be organic in nature, and
as such would also be long since decomposed at this time. As for their
tools, it is often difficult to even determine if a certain stone or
antler -is- a tool, much less its purpose.

As a result of many years of research and conjecture, some of the widely
held beliefs of the possible diet of Stone Age man might include:

- Berries
- Plant shoots
- Nuts
- Fruits
- Tubers
- Insects
- Raw meat
- Bone marrow
- Blood

With the discovery of fire (about 12,000 B.C), Stone Age man eventually
learned to cook their meat and other foods. Depending on your sense of
time scale, it was soon after this that they began working with metals,
thus taking it out of the range of your original question.

And back to your original question... (personal opinions follow
please take with a grain of salt :-)

"...so I can avoid the poisonous foods of civilized cultures."

A rather brash, and to my ears anyway, uneducated statement.

I am not sure exactly what you mean by 'poisonous', but I would expect
you are refering to "aspects of food that can be detrimental to your
health if ingested", in which case, there is virtually no culture that
is free from this.

Stone Age Man most likely ate raw meat, and as we all know, raw meat can
harbour all sorts of nasties. Ok, so they eventually learned to cook it,
which would get rid of these, well then we enter the realm of how gilling
can produce the carcinogens that are all over the papers now days. Ok,
so lets leave meat out of this, and talk 'vegetarian'. Many plants
include some level of 'natural' poisons. Take a green tomato for instance,
it can be poisonous, unless cooked (ie: unless you apply technology to it).
And many spices are a form of poison (such as hot peppers), or have
detrimental affects associated with them (such as salt).

As a previous poster pointed out. The life expentency of primative man
was extremely low. Granted, some of this was due to the dangers from
the other creatures around him, but just overall health and well being
from diet was not considered to be very great. Today, our life
expectancy is the greatest it has ever been, even if you remove the
'heroic life saving devices' such as feeding by i.v. tube and other
methods that prolong life beyond resonable quality. I suppose, if
there was some way to 'apply technology' to our diet in order to
remove virtually all ill effects, our lifespan would be even longer,
but personally, I really see no need to exist beyond the 70+ years
that statistically I should be on this planet.

To remove any form of food from your diet that might in any way be
considered poisonous would -not- mean going back to the diet of Stone
Age Man, but instead doing intensive research into not only the
full chemical compositions of all foodstuffs, but also the possible
interactions that any of these might have with one another. And then
you would have to also take into account that there are probably elements
that at the moment we are totally unaware that are 'hazardous'.

Personally, I feel that that 'fear and anquish' that you must have
regarding being poisoned by technology is a far greater threat to your
health then the poisons (both real and imaginary) that you might be
ingesting.

-Robert
 __________________________________________________________________________
     #####   ####### |  Robert B. Hess                     Microsoft Corp. 
    ######  #######  |-----------------------------------------------------
   ####### #######   |  >internet:[email-masked]
  #### ##### ####    |  One Microsoft Way; Redmond WA 98052-6399
 ####  ###  ####     |_____________________________________________________
   "...my opinions are strictly my own, and not those of my employer..."

---

From: [email-masked] (Jeff "Crusader" Gonzales)
Date: 13 Jun 1994 15:09:42 GMT

Thanks for your comment.  I by no means am trying to sound uneducated in 
my pursuit of healthy eating.  Perhaps my use of the words "stone age" 
were incorrect, but looking at the present trends in foods (ie, fast 
foods, cheap processed foods, etc.), we are not improving.  I am looking 
for simple foods that can be found naturally that are not poisonous.  It 
seems as though the more we process, tin, pack, fry, grill, etc foods the 
worse they are for us.

More later...

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From: [email-masked] (SDunavan)
Date: 13 Jun 1994 12:44:03 -0400

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Jeff
"Crusader" Gonzales) writes:

>"so I can try and avoid the poisonous foods of civilized cultures"

I'm interested in knowing what Jeff (and others) think "civilized"
food is (and what its opposite is, apart from natural resources that
have been not managed at all, but only hunted or gathered).  Does
civilized food begin with the advent of agriculture or just with what
we think of as "high" (chiefdoms, states, empires) civilizations?  

For those interested in prehistoric plant and animal foods, there is
a huge archaeological literature on this topic.  Organic food remains
ARE commonly preserved in garbage in the form of carbonized seed,
root, etc. fragments.  Some references for those interested in plant
foods:
     Harris, David R. and Gordon C. Hillman (1989), Foraging and
Farming:
The Evolution of Plant Exploitation.  Unwin Hyman, London.
     Renfrew, Jane M.  (1972), Prehistoric Plant Foods of the Near
East and Europe.  Columbia Univ. Press, NY  (also several newer books
on the practice of paleoethnobotany)
     van Zeist, W. and W. Casparie (1984), Plants and Ancient Man. 
Balkema, Rotterdam.  (also a newer book on Paleoethnobotany)
     Pearsall, Deborah  (1989)  Paleoethnobotany: A Handbook of
Procedures.  Academic Press, San Diego.
             you should also check the last ten years or so of the
"Journal of Ethnobiology", and research under "subsistence" and
"archaeology (or archeology)".  Happy hunting, gathering, and
cultivating.
                           Sandy Dunavan

---

From: [email-masked] (Stephen Bloch)
Date: 13 Jun 1994 22:10:33 -0400

Jeff "Crusader" Gonzales <[email-masked]> wrote:
>I by no means am trying to sound uneducated in my pursuit of healthy eating....
>looking at the present trends in foods (ie, fast 

As has been pointed out, that last sentence is not strictly true: for
example, freshly cooked pork is indisputably better for you than raw pork.

But I don't want to make Jeff out as a Luddite; there is a legitimate
argument that one's body can best handle a diet similar to that for which
it has evolved.  To put this into practice, however, you need some sort of
"weighted average" diet over your entire evolutionary history, something
that largely ignores both dietary changes too recent to have significantly
impacted the evolution of the digestive tract (e.g. drinking Coca-Cola)
and dietary changes so long ago that they've been superseded by later
evolutionary developments (e.g. eating multicellular organisms).  I don't
see any scientifically justifiable way to do this.

But you can take some reasonable and obvious steps in that direction.  
RULE: Eat fresh fruits, vegetables, etc. whenever possible.
EXCEPTION: You're better off eating precooked, frozen stuff than eating
moldy stuff.
RULE: Eat things that are actually in season now.
EXCEPTION: In most temperate climates, what's in season in midwinter is a
very unbalanced diet; you'll be better off with frozen or hothouse food.
RULE: Eat things raw, or minimally cooked by your own hands rather than
somebody else's.
EXCEPTION: Don't eat raw things that are poisonous when raw.  If you don't
know how to prepare the thing safely and detect spoilage, rely on a pro.

And so on.

-- 
					Stephen Bloch
				     [email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (Jeff "Crusader" Gonzales)
Date: 15 Jun 1994 02:07:06 GMT

Thank you for your reply.  I am shocked at how many I have been 
receiving.  I have just recently (about a year ago) begun to seriously 
research "healthy eating".  I researched the "Hay System", which involved 
separating starchy foods from proteinous foods at mealtimes.  This made a 
lot of sense.  In summary, he stated that protein foods, such as meats and 
soy products, took about 8 hours to digest.  He stated that starchy foods 
took 2-4 hours.  Juicy, "acid" fruits took 20 minutes.  By combining them 
in the stomach, it was difficult to digest them, because the acids formed 
by starchy foods neutralized those formed by acidic foods (juicy fruits 
and meats).  By separating them, such as eating foods like dates, figs, 
grains, and potatoes separate from mangoes, oranges, and animal flesh, 
your health would improve.

This, to a large extent, helped me greatly.  I then came upon another book.

This next book was first published in the late 1800's by an author named
Arnold Ehret.  He professed a scientific method called "mucusless 
dieting".  He was against eating meats, grains, and nuts, and any "mixtures" 
which involved combining too many foods in one meal (ie, heavy pork chop 
and potatoes covered with gravy type of meals).  This was very shocking 
to me.  It corresponded to the Hay system, somewhat, but eliminated a lot of
food groups that I had been accustomed to.  He stated that animals in 
nature do not eat "mixed foods" and are more simplistic.  When do you see 
deer eating potatoes and meats together?  When do you see them eating 
processed flours and sugars?  Even carnivorous animals do not eat 
mixtures.  They eat animals which do no eat mixtures, and at that go for 
their intestines which have nutrients from the foods they ate.

This system had lots of potential for me.  He stressed the benefits of a 
fast, something which I was not accustomed to.  He mentioned how fats 
were unnatural and should not be eaten.  He has a lot of radical ideas, 
some which I adhere to and others which I do not.  The book is out of 
print and the publisher does not exist anymore.  Could I scan it and send 
it to those who are interested in helping me out with understanding this 
system?

There are a lot of good ideas in this book, but he died before he could 
completely develop them.  It seemed to have worked for him.  I would like 
it to work for me.  If anyone would like me to explain more I could.  All 
I know is that some of my senses have become more acute as a result of 
adhering to this "scientific eating method" (as he would have referred to 
it).  I no longer have stomach problems and have not gotten any sort of 
sickness for ages.  I have also noticed my blood has become 
significantly darker.  I do have a problem with being hyper and wanting to 
eat a lot.  Perhaps it is a result of my large ingestion of fruit sugars 
in combination with a mildly sedentary job ( I work in a computer center ).

One of the most difficult ideas I would like to conquer is the "protein 
myth".  Ehret does not approve of eating meats at all.  He doesn't even 
approve of eating nuts, except when in transition from "modern man's" 
diet to his mucusless one.  He says they produce uric acid.  It's hard 
for me to explain some of his ideas as they use language that modern 
doctors and scientist no longer user (ie, we no longer say "grape sugars"
or "carbon-hyrdates" when referring to simple carbohydrates).  
Continuing, I have noticed that, after not eating meat for a few months, 
that when I went back to eating meat for two days in a row (for dinners) 
that I developed cold sores in my mouth, an illness that bothered me 
greatly as a child.  Is this a sign?

I would hope that I am taken seriously by those reading this newsgroup.  
I apologize for my usage of "stone-age", as if stone-age man had the 
perfect diet.  I lacked proper terms to describe a diet better than those 
which are currently implemented in today's societes, such as fast foods 
and the like.  Thanks.

---

From: [email-masked] (steve hix)
Date: 14 Jun 1994 20:15:43 GMT

:In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Robert Hess) writes:
:
:= but personally, I really see no need to exist beyond the 70+ years
:= that statistically I should be on this planet.

Speak for yourself.

---

From: [email-masked] (Laurel Halbany)
Date: 10 Jun 94 02:27:00 GMT

-=> Quoting John E. Taylor Iii to All <=-

JETI> I'm not sure a poorly balanced diet of "whatever you can find/catch",
JETI> which is what, in fact, people ate before civilized culture brought
JETI> choice, would avoid much in the way of health hazards.

Well, the diet wasn't necessarily "poorly balanced." Our bodies seem
to be adapted well to a diet of "gather lots of plant material, and
occasionally stumble across a dead animal." Plus, our entire fat-storage
system is geared to protecting us in case of food shortages.

JETI> As for preparation methods, boiling, roasting on a stick/spit, baking
JETI> in ashes or a mud coating sound about right.

Cooking on hot rocks, or boiling liquids by dropping hot stones into
them. I'm not sure when pit-roasting came along, but it probably
wasn't *that* late.

JETI> Seasonings?  If it grows locally, use it.  If not, it wouldn't be
JETI> authentic.  How many spices grow in Oregon?  Might be a bland diet.

Like the rest of the country, Oregon has plant life, including herbs.

... Revolutions are not made with rose-water.
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12

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From: [email-masked] (Charlie Sorsby)
Date: 14 Jun 1994 19:28:05 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Robert Hess) writes:
= it can be poisonous, unless cooked (ie: unless you apply technology to it).
= And many spices are a form of poison (such as hot peppers), or have
= detrimental affects associated with them (such as salt).

I seem to remember reading/hearing that salt does not *cause* high
blood pressure but rather aggravates the situation in those
predisposed to it.  Any comments?

= but personally, I really see no need to exist beyond the 70+ years
= that statistically I should be on this planet.

Perhaps, when a greater fraction of that span has passed, you will
reconsider...  :)

Sorry--I couldn't resist.

-- 
Best,

Charlie "Older than dirt" Sorsby				"I'm the NRA!"
	  [email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (Fred Blonder)
Date: 15 Jun 1994 15:14:54 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
	Jeff "Crusader" Gonzales <[email-masked]> wrote:

	. . . This [ . . . ]  book was first published in the late
	1800's by an author named Arnold Ehret.  He professed a
	scientific method called "mucusless dieting".  . . .

	he died before he could completely develop [his ideas].
	^^^^^^^
   +----+
   |
   |	It seemed to have worked for him. . .  .
   |    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   +----+
   |
Sounds like a non-sequitor to me.  ;-)
-- 
Fred Blonder		[email-masked]

Hughes STX Corp.	(301) 441-4079
7701 Greenbelt Rd.
Greenbelt, Md.  20770

---

From: [email-masked] (Christina Hulbe)
Date: 17 Jun 1994 20:14:21 GMT

>He stated that animals in

It might be worth noting that deer are herbivores and have
digestive systems that are quite different from that of humans.

>mixtures.  They eat animals which do no eat mixtures, and at that go for

Again, people are not carnivores && do not have the same physiology
as carnivores.  Modern nutritionists && physiologists know a lot
about how digestion, etc. works in humans.  If you can stand the
flames you'll probably get, you might want to ask some questions
on sci.med.nutrition.

Tina :)

---

From: [email-masked] (Jack Campin)
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 20:18:10 GMT

[email-masked] (Jeff "Crusader" Gonzales) wrote:
> I have just recently (about a year ago) begun to seriously research
> "healthy eating".  I researched the "Hay System" [...]
> Arnold Ehret.  He professed a scientific method called "mucusless dieting".

As you have probably worked out by now, these are part of a sizable movement
originating in the Northern European countries late last century.  In Britain
it mostly went under the name "food reform", borrowed from a similar label in
German.  Some of it has proved pretty much dead on target, other bits (like
the Hay System) work for some people despite the theory being totally barmy,
a few bits (the more recent American spinoffs in particular) are just plain
revolting exploitative lunacy.

I'd be interested to know if there is any comprehensive history of this
movement.  My girlfriend has most of the central texts for the British food
reform movement and we've vaguely talked about how a history of it would be
nice.  Obviously a serious history would have to take into account the
German sources, what they took from occultism and Indian religion, and look
at how the movement developed in the quite different cultural milieus of
France and the US.  Researching this would involve some arcane trawling for
rare materials not represented in any academic library, and ideally studies
of the commerce this movement stimulated (the network of "health food"
stores that still exists in most parts of the First World, the development
of fads for particular foods on health grounds).  Only a few of the central
figures of the most innovative period are still alive and likely not for
much longer.

Is anybody out there working on this?  Do any good bibliographies exist?

There has simply *got* to be a PhD research topic in it...

> The book is out of print and the publisher does not exist anymore.  Could
> I scan it and send it to those who are interested in helping me out with
> understanding this system?

This would be one of the most useful contributions anyone has made to this
group.  If you have time to do this it would be great.  But check when Ehret
died to be sure you aren't violating copyright.

-- 
-- Jack Campin -- Room 1.36, Department of Computing & Electrical Engineering,
   Mountbatten Building, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh EH14 4AS
TEL: 031 449 5111 ext 4195         HOME: 031 556 5272        FAX: 031 451 3431
INTERNET: [email-masked]   BITNET: via UKACRL   BANG!net: via mcsun & uknet

---

From: [email-masked] (Mary Shafer)
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 23:03:51 GMT

There was a really good book about the food reforms (Graham, The San,
etc) called "The Nuts among the Berries" that was first published some
time around 1970.  Obviously not written by a true believer.  It may
still be in print.

My favorite story from this book is about Grape Nuts, originally called
Elijah's Manna until religious officials protested.  Apparently the
inventer of Grape Nuts (which contain neither grapes nor nuts) was
looking for a cure for "self-abuse" (better known these days as
masturbation).  Why high-fiber foods should have this effect is not
entirely clear to me.
--
Mary Shafer                                                   DoD #362 KotFR   
SR-71 Chief Engineer         NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA
[email-masked]                Of course I don't speak for NASA
 "A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all."  Unknown US fighter pilot

---

From: [email-masked] (Mordea)
Date: 18 Jun 1994 02:35:04 -0700

: = but personally, I really see no need to exist beyond the 70+ years
: = that statistically I should be on this planet.

: Perhaps, when a greater fraction of that span has passed, you will
: reconsider...  :)

    I know what you're saying.  I want to live longer than 70 years.  I 
want to live longer than 100 years.  I want people to look at my gnarled 
form when I'm 130 and say "Geeze!  Ain't she EVER gonna die!?!"
   And then I want to raise my wine glass to them, wash down some of the 
fried chicken I'm gnawing on, and say "Nope!  Get used to having me 
around forever, bastards!"
   I like old people.  I was raised by my Grandmother, and I think she 
was the coolest person I ever met.  Thanks to her, I'm not at all afraid 
to live to old, old age.  Like 180+.  At least.
   At least I HAVE a dream....

Mordea
-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  "Alright!  Alright!  Let them eat PIE!"
                    -Marie Antoinette, last words

---

From: [email-masked] (Alan Woods)
Date: 19 Jun 1994 10:37:41 GMT

T. Coraghessan Boyle's 1993 novel _The Road to Wellville_ is a deliciously 
(intended) funny satiric look at food faddism at the turn of the century, much 
of it being set at a Kellogg-like spa with a loopy set of dietary 
prescriptions.  Read it for a different take on the Food Reform movement.

---

From: [email-masked] (Jeff "Crusader" Gonzales)
Date: 20 Jun 1994 03:59:08 GMT

I have found only one other edition of Arnold Ehret's mucusless dieting 
book, and it is even out of print.  He died in the late 1800s (I think).  
I don't believe he had any heirs either.  I will try to scan the book 
into a file on my spare time.

Why do you say the "Hay System" was a failure?  And, believe it or not, I 
found the book when I was in Britain last year.

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